Question ASUS TUF 3080 Ti - black screen

[Roman Scharkov]

I've purchased a used ASUS TUF 3080 Ti in an Ebay auction. When I started testing it I realised it's crashing in the Unigine Superposition benchmark.
The system continues to run as you can still hear sound output but there's no video output. After a while the system initiates an automatic reboot.

The power and frequency settings were not changed. Latest (536.23) Nvidia drivers were re-installed several times. We tried the same system with another 3080 Ti and it runs stable leaving only the 3080 Ti I bought to blame.

We contacted the seller and he refuses to take the card back with the following explanation:

The card was tested extensively before shipping and did not produce any "blackscreens" or errors. Judging by your pictures you're running the card horizontally, without support, in your system. It is generally known that from series 3080 or 4080 a support should be used because the cooler of the cards are too heavy and bend the PCB too much. Because of this it often happens that the connectors of the components on the card expand at heat development and lose the contact. I therefore ask you to test the card again with a support. In my offer I have excluded a return or warranty and will stick to it.

However, we also tested the card both vertically and horizontally and the results are the same. Once it went into black screen even before we started the benchmark. The system was just booted and was cold which means it's probably not because of heat.

I have a feeling I'm being scammed here and wanted to ask for your opinion whether I'm missing something important?

System (all components run at default clock speeds, no OC)
CPU: Ryzen 5 3600
PSU: be quiet! Dark Power 13 750W
RAM: 4x 8GB Vengenance LPX 3200Mhz CL16
Mainboard: MSI B450M MORTAR MAX
1x 4TB 3.5" HDD
1x 3TB 3.5" HDD
1x 250GB SSD
1x CD-ROM drive
1x WD_BLACK NVMe M.2 SN750 1TB

 

[Deleted member 2731765]

Most likely the seller gave you a faulty and a non-working GPU. Because, since you already tried another 3080 Ti on your system, and there are NO issues, this means the card you bought might be defective.

Was the card used for MINING before ?

 

[Roman Scharkov]

Most likely the seller gave you a faulty and a non-working GPU. Because, since you already tried another 3080 Ti on your system, and there are NO issues, this means the card you bought might be defective.

Was the card used for MINING before ?

No. The description said it was used for gaming only. It also explicitly stated that it's "100% functioning."

Besides the black-screen crashes, I also started getting random glitches on the screen that look like flickering dots and once it crashed into a bluescreen saying:

VIDEO TDR FAILURE
nvlddmkm.sys

The card is pretty much unusable. The seller's reputation seems good which is why I'm surprised to be scammed like that. Involving Ebay Buyer Protection is probably the only option now since the seller refuses to take it back and return the money.

 

[Deleted member 2731765]

That's a bit odd, because the error message VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE with blue screen (BSOD), mostly indicates that the GPU driver has stopped responding or is malfunctioning.

At that point of time, system will restart automatically, to prevent data loss and to restore the things to their default. The most common reason for this issue is due to incompatible GPU drivers or graphics device is being overloaded beyond its capabilities.

But since you already re-install the drivers several times, then this assumption rules out. It must your GPU which might be faulty.